Chapter 8. Interoperability, Tools, and Middleware Products

Chapter 8. Interoperability, Tools, and Middleware Products

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Interoperability: The "Holy Grail" of Web Services

• The Larger Web Services Landscape

We've learned, and watched SkatesTown learn, an awful lot about Web services so far. The last couple of chapters in particular dealt with getting Web service clients and servers talking to each other in a world where you don't necessarily have a priori knowledge of the systems you connect with. This chapter will dig a bit deeper into the subject of interoperability, especially the issues which arise when you're tying together systems that use completely different platforms and/or programming languages. We'll begin by discussing interoperability in general, and then move on to explore using some of the other available toolkits to integrate with SkatesTown's services.